With the new and improved hit-reg, the game is kinda horribly unbalanced.
Marines should win in every engagement possible if it is a fair 1v1 and that is badddd. Alien lifeforms need a base health increase or Marines need the Rifle/Shotgun DPS to be decreased by some amount.
I hate to say it but after playing a while today, those jetpacks are insane. I sort of wish skulk leap was better because it seems extremely lacking now with the regular speed boosts.
AurOn2COOKIES! FREEDOM, AND BISCUITS!AustraliaJoin Date: 2012-01-13Member: 140224Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Forum staff
How about a sonar ability for hives? it would cost something like 50/10 res and reveal ANYTHING on infestation (so long as it's connected to the hive using the ability) In a huge wave.
I think the 200 build cap is a bit too harsh, I can only build like +- 3 macs and 6 sentries on top of a normal 3 CC base (which you know, I kind of need to have A and W 3) before I hit the cap.
Why doesn't the cap scale with map control, surely that would make a lot more sense? I.e 150 for 1 cc, 200 for 2 and 250 for 3. At least that way you can properly advance your map control without hitting a ceiling. Now it just feels like the game punishes me for having a lot of map control.
Also, can we get rid of sentry batteries already? Why do we need it if we have this build cap system. It just needlessly restricts their placement, making BB even easier. (It's easy enough with how little HP they have, don't need to have 1 BB hit 3 sentries on top of that) Keep them capped per room if that's what your worried about, though ideally a system like this should make any other cap system redundant.
Lastly, dual exo drops. Why are these still not in? I remember Charlie stating months ago that dual exo drops would be implemented. It's ridiculous that aliens can drop onos but marine comms can only drop single exos.
With the new and improved hit-reg, the game is kinda horribly unbalanced.
Marines should win in every engagement possible if it is a fair 1v1 and that is badddd. Alien lifeforms need a base health increase or Marines need the Rifle/Shotgun DPS to be decreased by some amount.
you're looking at it from the wrong angle.
melee versus ranged is clearly not going to have ideal balance. generally, if the melee class is able to get into melee range - it will be heavily favoured and visa versa. the solution for this is alien mobility; allowing them far greater potential to flank, retreat or harrass, thus averting the need to engage marines from unfavourable range.
in the early game, aliens are all about harrassing and coordinated (strategic) defending - because those skulks are at a combat disadvantage. however, if the aliens can maintain the status quo until they have lerks then it's the marine's turn to have a combat disadvantage. it's then the marines who need to maintain the status quo until they get shotguns/upgrades, then it's aliens until they get fades etc.
anyway, bottom line is that bt mod isn't really the place for balance debates. it's more about trying new features which would improve the game experience.
remiremedy [blu.knight]Join Date: 2003-11-18Member: 23112Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester
I tested this out last night. I really like the Fade movement. Skulk movement was great when I was running forwards but when I tried to change direction it had a tendency to "stick". In some ways this is good because my greatest issue with the skulk movement is when I hit the strafe button and end up losing all forward momentum. I also liked that jumping helped keep momentum (especially for the fade) not quite a bunnyhop... But no matter how much NS2 I play I always have a tendency to try to bhop a bit, at least to make it a little harder for marines to shoot me.
The onos was really bad, specifically when trying to change direction.
I liked the bone shield and think it would be very interesting to try that in battle. It adds more of a support / tanking attribute to the Onos. I'd prefer to be able to have bone shield as a secondary for gore... maybe 1 = gore + stomp, 2 = gore + shield. Needing to switch abilities mid-battle is always clunky, especially without a 'lastinv' button.
I don't remember any other feedback I've got.
I dislike alien upgrades costing res, I would like to see an alien p-res sink elsewhere.
As a side note to that, having the upgrades cost a flat 5 res each really undermines the "tiering" system that was put in on the upgrades. The only people who would ever spend 5 pres on a 1 or even a 2 chamber upgrade as a skulk are new players that don't know any better. It can also make ending games a little bit of a headache as skulk, because you will be way more helpful to your team if you are not a skulk, but being an un-upgraded skulk in late game is really no fun either.
melee versus ranged is clearly not going to have ideal balance. generally, if the melee class is able to get into melee range - it will be heavily favoured and visa versa. the solution for this is alien mobility; allowing them far greater potential to flank, retreat or harrass, thus averting the need to engage marines from unfavourable range.
...
anyway, bottom line is that bt mod isn't really the place for balance debates. it's more about trying new features which would improve the game experience.
The idea that a massive balance mod designed to change the game and have features enter the real thing, and we are not supposed to talk about balance?
Anyways, the idea that a game will not have ideal balance so you might as well not attempt to fix it is amazingly lazy. Yes, Slulks can spend the entire time running away and attacking undefended Refineries, but that doesn't solve the issue that basic Marine vs Slulk is unbalanced.
JektJoin Date: 2012-02-05Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
edited April 2013
Reading through what is now in the description on steam workshop, there are some items I disagree with.
I'll admit I preferred the mod a month ago, not to say I still don't very much like the overall picture of the changes and the intended goals. I won't comment on movement since it's still likely to be changed a lot. I'll chime in and say that I too am quite fond of vanilla fade movement. Shadow stepping into jump or double jumps while air strafing around bends is very enjoyable.
armor / weapon upgrades require now 2/3 command stations
Why? To prevent turtling? Reward map control? Bore players with more E holding?
Even if we don't include concede for the turtle argument, there are much more interesting ways to manipulate gameplay than to force this prerequisite every round. Systems already in the game and in this mod help aliens get over the marine upgrade hurdle when the game is essentially over. Biomass health upgrades, T2 umbra, bile destroying weapons and spawn times are some I can name straight away.
Skulks are frustrating to play against a fully upgraded marine, high level biomass will allow you to take more punishment - but I think a the more important step would be including upgrades such as focus on top of refined movement mechanics that can make the skulk feel more powerful against upgraded marines, instead of just resetting marines on CC losses.
Even in its current form, upgrades are based on map control. Holding resource towers is the map control that allows for quicker arms lab upgrades. Having 3 CCs littered about the map is meaningless to map control. Players hold E enough, power nodes make sure of that and CC's are painful to build.
Wasn't the tech point expansion requirement for aliens removed due to the frustration of being severely limited in the tech available and the very likely chance of a loss. How is this any less for the marine side?
I remember this being @IronHorse idea, and I could understand it when it was proposed in the beta when the chances of a marine turtle were pretty damn close to guaranteed. In the current game and even more so in this mod I don't understand its purpose.
exosuits can now use phase gates
Should probably just call it heavy armor and be done with it. The only reasons we don't see exosuits more often is due to this and not being able to build or weld structures. If you remove these limitations I think the exosuit becomes grossly overpowered, the DPS output on the dual mini gun for example is ridiculous.
Hooray for nerfing the claw and it's great that you recognize the problem of it's design and implementation. Getting claw'd by an overheated exo or one that can't aim while lapping its feet is the worst.
added nano armor research to arms lab (marines regenerate 1 armor per second when out of combat
Again, I don't understand the reason for this to exist. So as soon as this is researched nobody gets welders and we're right back where we started. 1 armor per second seems reasonably slow however, I'll need to play a few rounds with this.
gorges move now 20% faster on infestation
Bellyslide is already quicker on infestation and the carapace armor bonus is huge. Don't think separate movement speeds depending on infest or not needs to be a thing.
biomass allows for alien evolutions to be researched
Said my piece on this earlier.
There's no situation where you wouldn't get leap if your skulks were struggling, bile if they were trying to end the game with arcs, blink if you've held enough RTs to have fades up soon. There's no strategic variation in what lifeform evolutions are chosen. It's reactionary and independent of any before hand strategy.
rupture can now be cast directly on infestation, like bonewall (infestation bubble grows up and pops, marine can reduce effect by looking in another direction)
As Scatter said, this can be spammed at the moment and should have a cooldown implemented. Being able to look away and having the vision obstruction relative to where you look during the explosion is a huge improvement. I know I'll still find it infuriating and vote for its removal, but on the other hand the alien commander doesn't need any less to do.
melee versus ranged is clearly not going to have ideal balance. generally, if the melee class is able to get into melee range - it will be heavily favoured and visa versa. the solution for this is alien mobility; allowing them far greater potential to flank, retreat or harrass, thus averting the need to engage marines from unfavourable range.
...
anyway, bottom line is that bt mod isn't really the place for balance debates. it's more about trying new features which would improve the game experience.
The idea that a massive balance mod designed to change the game and have features enter the real thing, and we are not supposed to talk about balance?
Anyways, the idea that a game will not have ideal balance so you might as well not attempt to fix it is amazingly lazy. Yes, Slulks can spend the entire time running away and attacking undefended Refineries, but that doesn't solve the issue that basic Marine vs Slulk is unbalanced.
it sounds like you're suggesting "marines are imba, nerf marines/buff aliens!". however, we can clearly see that it's possible for both aliens and marines to win - the weight of imbalance is just thrown back and forth during the match as each team goes through their vulnerable stage.
ergo significantly buffing skulk in direct combat against marine would mean alien would have a stronger early-game economy and you'd need to compensate with a buff to marines during the latter stages to cope with lerk/fade.
asymmetry is one of the most interesting parts of the game. it's unnecessary for marine to be equal to skulk, lerk or fade.
Yes, it is always possible for a team to win, even if the other team is the most broken thing in the world, that is because of skill. However the problem is that I don't feel like equal skill gives equal results. While you can say that it is fine due to some other aspect, I disagree. The base combat of Marine vs Slulk should be balanced overall in all the possible situations. If it means that something else should be nerfed. The thing is, that is just the basic combat. Things such as how easy it is for one team to hold or expand is still legit to deal with. Also when each team gets strong with upgrades.
Aliens starting weaker than Marines is a dumb idea. I understand the back and forth of upgrades and research to make one team stronger than another as the game goes on, but the base combat should not start off with that. This can be as simple as making Slulks have 80/10 health instead.
Yes, it is always possible for a team to win, even if the other team is the most broken thing in the world, that is because of skill. However the problem is that I don't feel like equal skill gives equal results. While you can say that it is fine due to some other aspect, I disagree. The base combat of Marine vs Slulk should be balanced overall in all the possible situations. If it means that something else should be nerfed. The thing is, that is just the basic combat. Things such as how easy it is for one team to hold or expand is still legit to deal with. Also when each team gets strong with upgrades.
Aliens starting weaker than Marines is a dumb idea. I understand the back and forth of upgrades and research to make one team stronger than another as the game goes on, but the base combat should not start off with that. This can be as simple as making Slulks have 80/10 health instead.
or as simple as giving them functional bunny hop/wall-jump mechanics à la bt mod.
Exosuits being able to use Phase Gates eliminate the only real downside (except for not being beacon-able, which is not that crucial anymore with PG use, and not being able to receive medpack spam) of them compared to regular infantry.
In our last test game were aliens about to make a comeback by clutching onto our Crossroads PG and were holding their ground against our defenders there - until I told people that Exos could now use Phase Gates. People instantly took them and we had no more trouble fending off any attack on Crossroads, Atrium and Data Core at the same time. Without Exos we were really struggling against their constant Lerk and Fade attacks and certainly would have lost at some point. The aliens on the PG were caught completely by surprise when the Exo appeared and died with a WTF on their faces.
While having been nerfed, they have not been nerfed enough to warrant this kind of buff again.
Now for W/A 2/3 being tied to 2/3 CCs. I for my part embrace the change in parts. You need W2/A2 to be competitive once Fades come up and securing a second CC is not that hard after all. W3/A3 are more luxury that you need to really end the game in the lategame, but I don't consider it really mandatory. Holding 3 of 5 TPs now gives the upper hand to one team.
Being able to get Jetpacks and Exos on 1 CC makes up for it and gives you a better chance against Onos than W3/A3 in itself would.
However, the obvious problem that Sewlek also noticed during the playtest was that the system doesn't really work out on Veil with only 4 TPs. And I don't think his "we should not play Veil anymore" or "all maps should have 5 TPs anyway" approaches are the way to go here. Veil is good because it is different.
How could we tackle the issue then?
- One possible approach would be to have a system in place that checks for the number of TPs in the map. If it's less than 5, then marines are able to get the W3/A3 already on 2 TPs. However, this might be a silly conditional change to a system and might confuse players.
- Hence a different suggestion: Perhaps allow marines to basically get all the upgrades still on 1 CC, but the cost for the upgrade is then multiplied by (1+NumMissingRequiredCC).
So if you are on 1 CC, W2/A2 would cost 600 res each instead of 300. W3/A3 would cost 1200 res each instead of 400.
If you are on 2 CCs W3/A3 would cost 800 res each. Optionally add some discount if you are past the requirements so W1/A1 would cost only 100 res on 2 CCs and 50 res on 3 CCs.
On 3 CCs would it cost the regular 400 res, but W2/A2 might be available for 150 res and W1/W2 for 50 res. Though this could easily be "exploited" by rushing CC tech for cheap upgrades.
However, that would open up another problem: currently you are losing your current upgrade level as soon as you lose the respective number of CCs (as opposed to aliens who keep their upgrades until they die). So what if you bought an upgrade at the 3 CC cost and then lose a CC? Would you still be able to use the upgrade? After all you could still get the same upgrade on 2 CCs, just at a higher cost.
Should you be able to research it again on that level by paying the difference? And should you also be able to pay the difference in advance while still being on 3 CCs, to prepare for the worst?
Or just keep it? Or keep it until the Arms Lab gets destroyed?
Or put it on a timer, so you will lose it if you don't rebuild a CC within the next X minutes? (So it could also be used to end turtles)
Nano Armor: I like it. It is for sure on par with A1 as first upgrade, since that one or two seconds between parasite and the actual fight that your armor regenerates can make the difference between a 2 and 3 bite kill. And it makes lone wolf marines so much more viable.
In the end it doesn't really matter all that much to balance. In our test games were marines usually all going for welders and keep each other welded between fights. Or I had MACs around the Armories who would do the same. Nano Armor is more an early game advantage in that regard that becomes obsolete in the lategame because you have the res flow to repair armor in other ways.
Not sure why the rate was raised from 0.5 per second to 1 per second, though. The question is whether we want to have a full replacement to Armory armor healing to full or just a small bonus before engagements that won't put an A3 marine back to full by the time the next alien wave arrives.
The 20% Gorge speed advantage on infestation is related to Bellyslide only, I think. Maybe it got included because some (including myself) were asking for more infestation importance again. This is going a bit in that direction, though not really the way I hoped. I didn't notice the change thus far in game, so I can't judge yet whether or not it's beneficial for the balance.
I like Biomass for the early game options it opens. It allows the balance to delay certain tech by a certain amount while still making the tech available earlier than it would regularly have been when it was just based on the Hive number. You can get Leap early, but you have to pay with more time and resources. It also allows to make aliens competitive from 1 Hive on by adding vital defense abilities to the early tier (Gorge Tunnel to get out of a siege and secure locations, Bile Bomb against ARC trains and for early base harassment, Leap to fight Shotguns) without making them available from the get-go.
The decision what to spend res on is actually an important one. When we were sieged on our starting Hive in Server Room from marines with a PG in Mezzanine in the playtest, I was confronted with a bunch of choices how to get out of it:
- I could fortify the Hive with Crags, Shades and Shifts that were all available from the beginning thanks to the unleashed khammander, but which were a tad more expensive than in vanilla.
- I could get Gorge Tunnels to create a path into the marine's back.
- I could get more trait levels.
- I could drop another Hive in Warehouse, though marines were holding Repair already and approaching Ore.
- I could invest into Biomass and make my aliens tougher while they were all gathered to defend the one Hive we had instead of splitting them up.
In the end I fortified the Hive, got a Gorge Tunnel to Warehouse purely to not let marines take it over and went for 2x Biomass upgrade and then instantly for Leap to get a chance against the Shotgunners who kept pouring into our Hive area. Bile Bomb got skipped at this point because we simply could not afford that much on 3 RTs only. (I also distraced a bunch of enemies by sending a Shift-Drifter, which easily outruns any marine, just through Mezzanine all around the map to Repair and then into their main base. That thing occupied about 3 marines for the time being)
We still lost the match in the end as soon as marines took over Warehouse after I dropped the Hive there, but at least I had some more choices available than "Have to go Shift Hive first to prevent egg lock. Then have to go for second Hive or else we won't stand a chance."
Where is the current vanilla system not reactionary to anything other than "what lifeforms does my team have on the field by the time I finish the second Hive" and "are marines pressuring us or are we pressuring them"?
Yeah, Rupture is too spammable. But it's better than having it on the Cyst where it was basically useless because you were only weaking your Cyst for the marine to kill it even faster.
I also found it amusing to hear Rantology going wild in the chat with "WTF is this?! Where is it coming from?! Tell me, so I can kill it!!!".
Any chance that lerk spikes can receive similar treatment to the marine hitreg? I feel that spikes suffer the same as the skulks parasite did. (however I'm not sure if anyone agrees, I just feel that a lot of the time lerk spikes don't connect!)
Can't say I'm a big fan of the exo's using phasegates and nano shield research. Exo's using phasegates is a MASSIVE boost to their mobility, one that they really are not in need of. I'd much rather just see their base speed tweaked a little to make them a little more mobile than to outright allow them to push through ninja-pgs and whatnot. The whole ARC/exo train to a destination is part of why they're such an exciting gameplay mechanic. (Which is not to say they don't need more work, I believe they do, particularly on the 'requiring skill front')
Nanoshield really doesn't warrant research imo, I don't foresee commanders bothering with it until they've unlocked pretty much everything else.
I really don't like the 3 TP marine requirement. It won't work for 4 TP maps and it just feels forced. Why not have A3/W3 on 2 CC only, with building caps also scaling based on number of TPs. You are concerned about marine turtling, which is why you try to force 2/3 TP map control for them to be at full effectiveness but you already have an amazing tool (build caps) available that would be capable of addressing the turtle problem. Simply scale the build cap with number of TPs, that way marines turtling at 1 TP will not be able to just build a huge amount of ARCs or sentries. Since aliens scale much better on hives on top of that, 3+ TP aliens vs 1 TP marines with lower build caps and only W2/A2 will be more than enough for aliens to have an easy time. (Even easier than in NS2 today at any rate)
The improved hitreg is not a true hitreg fix, its a banaid solution, and one that I do not agree with. Its a massive skill floor increase that is not needed, low level marines do not have problems killing low level skulks.
The improved hitreg is not a true hitreg fix, its a banaid solution, and one that I do not agree with. Its a massive skill floor increase that is not needed, low level marines do not have problems killing low level skulks.
If it is just a fix that makes a valid hit that would otherwise have missed count now, then I don't see a reason not to implement it. Tweaks would then have to be done at other fronts to make up for the higher number of shots that connect, but the valid effort of players should not suffer for balance reasons.
I don't think there's any one right answer on how Exos should be designed, i.e. whether it's better to make them very powerful but not mobile(like live) or less powerful and more mobile(like this mod). One could make the argument that the live version is more interesting because it differentiates them more strongly from normal marines and mixes up the tactics involved in dealing with them. One could also point out that it's frustrating for aliens to be unable to fight them head on and instead required to run away and harass bases, and also frustrating for marines to be so vulnerable to losing the game to a base rush when they go Exo.
In either case, not being able to weld eachother is still a significant drawback to having too many exos, so I don't think you'll ever see full teams of them like Heavies in NS1.
Exos in Phase gates are not going over well for me. Others have said it better than I have that the added mobility is NOT needed. There was an element of strategy where when the marines finally got exos, especially a pair of duals, our best bet was to wait until they rolled out and force a beacon so that they would be more vulnerable. That goes out the window and now I get a face full of exo wherever and whenever they please. With this mentality of on demand ownage, why not make arcs be able to use phase gates? It's what all the cool kids are doing!
I appreciate the imporved hit reg but without a concurrent improvement to skulks, I can't say I'm glad about it.
exo using PG is already disabled again, i agree that this didnt improve the game at all
Let me just add that though I'm still new to the forums, your mod is awesome! I hope you guys hurry up and import it into the vanilla game. (I'm especially looking forward to the inclusion of phantom)
Comments
Marines should win in every engagement possible if it is a fair 1v1 and that is badddd. Alien lifeforms need a base health increase or Marines need the Rifle/Shotgun DPS to be decreased by some amount.
Why doesn't the cap scale with map control, surely that would make a lot more sense? I.e 150 for 1 cc, 200 for 2 and 250 for 3. At least that way you can properly advance your map control without hitting a ceiling. Now it just feels like the game punishes me for having a lot of map control.
Also, can we get rid of sentry batteries already? Why do we need it if we have this build cap system. It just needlessly restricts their placement, making BB even easier. (It's easy enough with how little HP they have, don't need to have 1 BB hit 3 sentries on top of that) Keep them capped per room if that's what your worried about, though ideally a system like this should make any other cap system redundant.
Lastly, dual exo drops. Why are these still not in? I remember Charlie stating months ago that dual exo drops would be implemented. It's ridiculous that aliens can drop onos but marine comms can only drop single exos.
you're looking at it from the wrong angle.
melee versus ranged is clearly not going to have ideal balance. generally, if the melee class is able to get into melee range - it will be heavily favoured and visa versa. the solution for this is alien mobility; allowing them far greater potential to flank, retreat or harrass, thus averting the need to engage marines from unfavourable range.
in the early game, aliens are all about harrassing and coordinated (strategic) defending - because those skulks are at a combat disadvantage. however, if the aliens can maintain the status quo until they have lerks then it's the marine's turn to have a combat disadvantage. it's then the marines who need to maintain the status quo until they get shotguns/upgrades, then it's aliens until they get fades etc.
anyway, bottom line is that bt mod isn't really the place for balance debates. it's more about trying new features which would improve the game experience.
The onos was really bad, specifically when trying to change direction.
I liked the bone shield and think it would be very interesting to try that in battle. It adds more of a support / tanking attribute to the Onos. I'd prefer to be able to have bone shield as a secondary for gore... maybe 1 = gore + stomp, 2 = gore + shield. Needing to switch abilities mid-battle is always clunky, especially without a 'lastinv' button.
I don't remember any other feedback I've got.
As a side note to that, having the upgrades cost a flat 5 res each really undermines the "tiering" system that was put in on the upgrades. The only people who would ever spend 5 pres on a 1 or even a 2 chamber upgrade as a skulk are new players that don't know any better. It can also make ending games a little bit of a headache as skulk, because you will be way more helpful to your team if you are not a skulk, but being an un-upgraded skulk in late game is really no fun either.
So is that at 1 CC? How much cost? How long does the research take?
The idea that a massive balance mod designed to change the game and have features enter the real thing, and we are not supposed to talk about balance?
Anyways, the idea that a game will not have ideal balance so you might as well not attempt to fix it is amazingly lazy. Yes, Slulks can spend the entire time running away and attacking undefended Refineries, but that doesn't solve the issue that basic Marine vs Slulk is unbalanced.
I'll admit I preferred the mod a month ago, not to say I still don't very much like the overall picture of the changes and the intended goals. I won't comment on movement since it's still likely to be changed a lot. I'll chime in and say that I too am quite fond of vanilla fade movement. Shadow stepping into jump or double jumps while air strafing around bends is very enjoyable.
Why? To prevent turtling? Reward map control? Bore players with more E holding?
Even if we don't include concede for the turtle argument, there are much more interesting ways to manipulate gameplay than to force this prerequisite every round. Systems already in the game and in this mod help aliens get over the marine upgrade hurdle when the game is essentially over. Biomass health upgrades, T2 umbra, bile destroying weapons and spawn times are some I can name straight away.
Skulks are frustrating to play against a fully upgraded marine, high level biomass will allow you to take more punishment - but I think a the more important step would be including upgrades such as focus on top of refined movement mechanics that can make the skulk feel more powerful against upgraded marines, instead of just resetting marines on CC losses.
Even in its current form, upgrades are based on map control. Holding resource towers is the map control that allows for quicker arms lab upgrades. Having 3 CCs littered about the map is meaningless to map control. Players hold E enough, power nodes make sure of that and CC's are painful to build.
Wasn't the tech point expansion requirement for aliens removed due to the frustration of being severely limited in the tech available and the very likely chance of a loss. How is this any less for the marine side?
I remember this being @IronHorse idea, and I could understand it when it was proposed in the beta when the chances of a marine turtle were pretty damn close to guaranteed. In the current game and even more so in this mod I don't understand its purpose.
Should probably just call it heavy armor and be done with it. The only reasons we don't see exosuits more often is due to this and not being able to build or weld structures. If you remove these limitations I think the exosuit becomes grossly overpowered, the DPS output on the dual mini gun for example is ridiculous.
Hooray for nerfing the claw and it's great that you recognize the problem of it's design and implementation. Getting claw'd by an overheated exo or one that can't aim while lapping its feet is the worst.
Again, I don't understand the reason for this to exist. So as soon as this is researched nobody gets welders and we're right back where we started. 1 armor per second seems reasonably slow however, I'll need to play a few rounds with this.
Bellyslide is already quicker on infestation and the carapace armor bonus is huge. Don't think separate movement speeds depending on infest or not needs to be a thing.
Said my piece on this earlier.
There's no situation where you wouldn't get leap if your skulks were struggling, bile if they were trying to end the game with arcs, blink if you've held enough RTs to have fades up soon. There's no strategic variation in what lifeform evolutions are chosen. It's reactionary and independent of any before hand strategy.
As Scatter said, this can be spammed at the moment and should have a cooldown implemented. Being able to look away and having the vision obstruction relative to where you look during the explosion is a huge improvement. I know I'll still find it infuriating and vote for its removal, but on the other hand the alien commander doesn't need any less to do.
it sounds like you're suggesting "marines are imba, nerf marines/buff aliens!". however, we can clearly see that it's possible for both aliens and marines to win - the weight of imbalance is just thrown back and forth during the match as each team goes through their vulnerable stage.
ergo significantly buffing skulk in direct combat against marine would mean alien would have a stronger early-game economy and you'd need to compensate with a buff to marines during the latter stages to cope with lerk/fade.
asymmetry is one of the most interesting parts of the game. it's unnecessary for marine to be equal to skulk, lerk or fade.
Aliens starting weaker than Marines is a dumb idea. I understand the back and forth of upgrades and research to make one team stronger than another as the game goes on, but the base combat should not start off with that. This can be as simple as making Slulks have 80/10 health instead.
or as simple as giving them functional bunny hop/wall-jump mechanics à la bt mod.
Partly agree with you.
Exosuits being able to use Phase Gates eliminate the only real downside (except for not being beacon-able, which is not that crucial anymore with PG use, and not being able to receive medpack spam) of them compared to regular infantry.
In our last test game were aliens about to make a comeback by clutching onto our Crossroads PG and were holding their ground against our defenders there - until I told people that Exos could now use Phase Gates. People instantly took them and we had no more trouble fending off any attack on Crossroads, Atrium and Data Core at the same time. Without Exos we were really struggling against their constant Lerk and Fade attacks and certainly would have lost at some point. The aliens on the PG were caught completely by surprise when the Exo appeared and died with a WTF on their faces.
While having been nerfed, they have not been nerfed enough to warrant this kind of buff again.
Now for W/A 2/3 being tied to 2/3 CCs. I for my part embrace the change in parts. You need W2/A2 to be competitive once Fades come up and securing a second CC is not that hard after all. W3/A3 are more luxury that you need to really end the game in the lategame, but I don't consider it really mandatory. Holding 3 of 5 TPs now gives the upper hand to one team.
Being able to get Jetpacks and Exos on 1 CC makes up for it and gives you a better chance against Onos than W3/A3 in itself would.
However, the obvious problem that Sewlek also noticed during the playtest was that the system doesn't really work out on Veil with only 4 TPs. And I don't think his "we should not play Veil anymore" or "all maps should have 5 TPs anyway" approaches are the way to go here. Veil is good because it is different.
How could we tackle the issue then?
- One possible approach would be to have a system in place that checks for the number of TPs in the map. If it's less than 5, then marines are able to get the W3/A3 already on 2 TPs. However, this might be a silly conditional change to a system and might confuse players.
- Hence a different suggestion: Perhaps allow marines to basically get all the upgrades still on 1 CC, but the cost for the upgrade is then multiplied by (1+NumMissingRequiredCC).
So if you are on 1 CC, W2/A2 would cost 600 res each instead of 300. W3/A3 would cost 1200 res each instead of 400.
If you are on 2 CCs W3/A3 would cost 800 res each. Optionally add some discount if you are past the requirements so W1/A1 would cost only 100 res on 2 CCs and 50 res on 3 CCs.
On 3 CCs would it cost the regular 400 res, but W2/A2 might be available for 150 res and W1/W2 for 50 res. Though this could easily be "exploited" by rushing CC tech for cheap upgrades.
However, that would open up another problem: currently you are losing your current upgrade level as soon as you lose the respective number of CCs (as opposed to aliens who keep their upgrades until they die). So what if you bought an upgrade at the 3 CC cost and then lose a CC? Would you still be able to use the upgrade? After all you could still get the same upgrade on 2 CCs, just at a higher cost.
Should you be able to research it again on that level by paying the difference? And should you also be able to pay the difference in advance while still being on 3 CCs, to prepare for the worst?
Or just keep it? Or keep it until the Arms Lab gets destroyed?
Or put it on a timer, so you will lose it if you don't rebuild a CC within the next X minutes? (So it could also be used to end turtles)
Nano Armor: I like it. It is for sure on par with A1 as first upgrade, since that one or two seconds between parasite and the actual fight that your armor regenerates can make the difference between a 2 and 3 bite kill. And it makes lone wolf marines so much more viable.
In the end it doesn't really matter all that much to balance. In our test games were marines usually all going for welders and keep each other welded between fights. Or I had MACs around the Armories who would do the same. Nano Armor is more an early game advantage in that regard that becomes obsolete in the lategame because you have the res flow to repair armor in other ways.
Not sure why the rate was raised from 0.5 per second to 1 per second, though. The question is whether we want to have a full replacement to Armory armor healing to full or just a small bonus before engagements that won't put an A3 marine back to full by the time the next alien wave arrives.
The 20% Gorge speed advantage on infestation is related to Bellyslide only, I think. Maybe it got included because some (including myself) were asking for more infestation importance again. This is going a bit in that direction, though not really the way I hoped. I didn't notice the change thus far in game, so I can't judge yet whether or not it's beneficial for the balance.
I like Biomass for the early game options it opens. It allows the balance to delay certain tech by a certain amount while still making the tech available earlier than it would regularly have been when it was just based on the Hive number. You can get Leap early, but you have to pay with more time and resources. It also allows to make aliens competitive from 1 Hive on by adding vital defense abilities to the early tier (Gorge Tunnel to get out of a siege and secure locations, Bile Bomb against ARC trains and for early base harassment, Leap to fight Shotguns) without making them available from the get-go.
The decision what to spend res on is actually an important one. When we were sieged on our starting Hive in Server Room from marines with a PG in Mezzanine in the playtest, I was confronted with a bunch of choices how to get out of it:
- I could fortify the Hive with Crags, Shades and Shifts that were all available from the beginning thanks to the unleashed khammander, but which were a tad more expensive than in vanilla.
- I could get Gorge Tunnels to create a path into the marine's back.
- I could get more trait levels.
- I could drop another Hive in Warehouse, though marines were holding Repair already and approaching Ore.
- I could invest into Biomass and make my aliens tougher while they were all gathered to defend the one Hive we had instead of splitting them up.
In the end I fortified the Hive, got a Gorge Tunnel to Warehouse purely to not let marines take it over and went for 2x Biomass upgrade and then instantly for Leap to get a chance against the Shotgunners who kept pouring into our Hive area. Bile Bomb got skipped at this point because we simply could not afford that much on 3 RTs only. (I also distraced a bunch of enemies by sending a Shift-Drifter, which easily outruns any marine, just through Mezzanine all around the map to Repair and then into their main base. That thing occupied about 3 marines for the time being)
We still lost the match in the end as soon as marines took over Warehouse after I dropped the Hive there, but at least I had some more choices available than "Have to go Shift Hive first to prevent egg lock. Then have to go for second Hive or else we won't stand a chance."
Where is the current vanilla system not reactionary to anything other than "what lifeforms does my team have on the field by the time I finish the second Hive" and "are marines pressuring us or are we pressuring them"?
Yeah, Rupture is too spammable. But it's better than having it on the Cyst where it was basically useless because you were only weaking your Cyst for the marine to kill it even faster.
I also found it amusing to hear Rantology going wild in the chat with "WTF is this?! Where is it coming from?! Tell me, so I can kill it!!!".
Nanoshield really doesn't warrant research imo, I don't foresee commanders bothering with it until they've unlocked pretty much everything else.
I really don't like the 3 TP marine requirement. It won't work for 4 TP maps and it just feels forced. Why not have A3/W3 on 2 CC only, with building caps also scaling based on number of TPs. You are concerned about marine turtling, which is why you try to force 2/3 TP map control for them to be at full effectiveness but you already have an amazing tool (build caps) available that would be capable of addressing the turtle problem. Simply scale the build cap with number of TPs, that way marines turtling at 1 TP will not be able to just build a huge amount of ARCs or sentries. Since aliens scale much better on hives on top of that, 3+ TP aliens vs 1 TP marines with lower build caps and only W2/A2 will be more than enough for aliens to have an easy time. (Even easier than in NS2 today at any rate)
I noticed I was getting hit so much more, but what did Sewlek do to it?
If it is just a fix that makes a valid hit that would otherwise have missed count now, then I don't see a reason not to implement it. Tweaks would then have to be done at other fronts to make up for the higher number of shots that connect, but the valid effort of players should not suffer for balance reasons.
In either case, not being able to weld eachother is still a significant drawback to having too many exos, so I don't think you'll ever see full teams of them like Heavies in NS1.
I appreciate the imporved hit reg but without a concurrent improvement to skulks, I can't say I'm glad about it.
Let me just add that though I'm still new to the forums, your mod is awesome! I hope you guys hurry up and import it into the vanilla game. (I'm especially looking forward to the inclusion of phantom)